


bloodstains (won't make it matter)

by bonebo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Brainwashing, Mutilation, Torture, if blizzard will not give me a reaper origin story i will write it my damn self pt. 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-07-14 08:56:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7164395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonebo/pseuds/bonebo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blackwatch is changing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Blackwatch is changing.

Gabriel Reyes has known it for months now, that the task force he held so close to his heart was going further and further astray, away from the goal they had been created to achieve—high brass had been more silent and mysterious than usual, lately, withholding information even from him, but that didn't stop the rumors from flying. Whispers of torture and blackmail, selling of private information, loose contracts with shady companies and worse; Gabriel knows Blackwatch is always going to be Overwatch's shadow force, always a little too rough for the public eye to handle, but lately he's had a nagging feeling that something is wrong, and he’s poured too much of himself into the program to sit back and ignore it.

So he goes to the mission reports, goes to other members, to informants—he asks people he shouldn’t be able to contact about things they shouldn’t know, digs back in records covered with dust and forgotten. He searches through archives from years gone by, tying pieces of the terrible puzzle together bit by bit, and he finds that everything he's heard is true.

It makes him sick, the things he reads of; kidnappings, torture, deals with known crime agencies. Treason and immorality, all in the name of Overwatch, in the name of the greater good--the supposed heroes, working with the bad guys to suit the interests of the few leading it all.

He blows off McCree's invitation to hit the bar, the first night he realizes that everything is wrong, that Blackwatch is rotting. Instead he stays awake, paces in his quarters until dawn, and comes up with a plan.

___

Morrison doesn't believe him.

Reyes shows him, again, getting more and more agitated—the files are right in front of him, as easy to read for Morrison as they were for him. _It’s proof,_ he says, and scowls at Morrison’s sigh, the roll of steely blue eyes. Morrison says his proof lacks context, that his speculation lacks basis; that Reyes is looking for trouble, just like he always is, never happy when things are settled down and quiet. Never satisfied with peace.

“We're the good guys, Gabe,” Morrison tells him, as if saying the words enough will somehow make them true, erase everything else. “Stop poking around and trust our leaders. You're only going to get in trouble.”

Reyes will not.

He did not drag himself off busted city streets and pour his life into an organization to do nothing as it leads him down paths he does not want to take, as it decays from the inside out. He has worked too hard, given too much, to blindly give up control and risk losing it all, and he tells Morrison so with a snarl.

John just sighs at him, shakes his head in resignation, admits he won't be able to make Reyes change his mind. _What’s the point of arguing about it,_ he asks, dropping his eyes back to his newspaper and sipping his black coffee. It isn't an outright dismissal, but it feels like one, and Reyes sets his jaw.

“Fine,” he says, turning his back on Morrison--on his best friend, on his last ally, on Overwatch. “I'll do it without you.”

___

His investigation has to stop when high brass sends the elite squad—Reyes, McCree, Traes—on a top-secret mission to eliminate a terrorist squad in Ukraine. Reyes thinks nothing of it, at first—is only half-focused as he loads up his gear, instead thinking of how best to present his information to the rest of his team--because he's done hundreds of execution missions before, just like this, and with his death squad at his back this one should be no different.

But then he's told that Traes will be sitting out, replaced by another operative—some mercenary he's never heard of before, sent in by high command to lead the strike.

Reyes is on the phone with command before his plane leaves the ground.

“What the fuck is this?” he demands, and he doesn't give a damn that everyone else on the plane can hear—let them listen, let them learn. If his Blackwatch is going to hell, then they deserve to at least know about it. “Last time I checked, _I_ led Blackwatch missions, not some merc you scraped up from God knows where!”

The response is a clipped, “That's _enough_ , Commander Reyes.” 

Mildly pacified by the use of his title, Reyes sinks back in his seat, crossing his arms and scowling as the voice continues, “Ajax was selected by hand for his expertise of the location. You will obey his orders to the letter, or you will be court-marshaled, do you understand?”

Reyes cuts the phone call without another word, his hands shaking. Rage makes his blood boil, and he stays silent for the rest of the flight, plotting the best way to bring command to its knees.


	2. Chapter 2

He'll never get the chance.

It's all he can think about, as he lies on the snow behind a blown-out building, vision fading—he's not going to make it back. He can see blood in the snow that surrounds him, feel the lingering warmth of it across his belly and chest; he tastes it when he coughs. His bleary eyes look around the bleak landscape, searching for help—in the distance he can just barely make out McCree, being led to an awaiting helicopter by Ajax's hand on his arm, and when Reyes strains his hearing he can _almost_ hear a shout of his name carried on the wind. 

He's too busy trying not to drown in his own blood to reply.

Reyes closes his eyes, then, lets them rest and take reprieve against the stinging snow; when he opens them again, prying them through cloying frost, the helicopter is gone. Nothing remains to break up the vast white except for the wreckage and his body, and the wind is achingly silent. He can barely feel the cold anymore, only a tingling in the farthest reaches of his limbs, and some part of him knows that's a bad sign—the bigger part of him just doesn't care.

Then he’s blinded by a brilliant golden light, shining warmly amid the snow; an angel comes into his view, making him squint against the wings that are blurry but bright, and he manages a soft sigh of relief when his foggy mind comes to the conclusion that somehow, despite all his flaws and mistakes, he was able to make it into heaven. 

His mother would be so proud. 

As the angel comes nearer, murmuring to him words in a language he can't understand, Gabriel closes his eyes to the golden light and lets go. 

His only regret is that he's leaving John behind.

___

But the next time he opens his eyes, he's again bathed in light.

He finds himself spread-eagle and held there, with metal cuffs biting into his wrists and ankles; he can feel the cold of the table he's on seeping into every inch of his body, chilling him to the bone and beyond. His wounds—barely knitted together, still tender and raw—ache at that cold, and it pulls a hoarse groan from his lips as he tries to squirm in an attempt to relieve anything; the chill, the pain, the blinding light.

“Gabriel,” someone murmurs, voice sing-song, and he startles; suddenly a man appears beside him, his red visor the only thing separating him from the darkness, a sinister glow amid the gloom. “We've been waiting for you.”

Reyes squints against the light and tries to turn his head, to tell the figure he has no idea what he's talking about; but he finds he can do neither. His tongue is heavy in his dry mouth, his body leaden—he can feel the restrains as they squeeze into his ankles, but cannot move his feet. As if noticing his struggle, the figure speaks again.

“I wouldn't try to move. You'll only tire yourself out.” His voice sounds anything but sympathetic, almost a mocking coo, and his fingers reach out to tap a place below the base of Reyes's skull; the touch is electric, sends a shock of pain down his spine like a bolt of lightning, leaves him gasping. His heart stutters in the confines of his chest. “This little device is attached to your spinal cord—to put it simply, you can feel your body, but you can't control it. Guess who can?”

He chuckles, then, at Reyes's dawning look of horror, and starts a lazy pace around the table. “Delightful, isn't it, the wonders of modern medicine. Very useful for the chat we're going to have today.”

He disappears from Reyes's view, but his voice carries, dark and promising.

“I was told that you've been meddling where you shouldn't—sticking your nose in other people's business, prying where you're not allowed. Blackwatch has decided this behaviour will no longer be tolerated. You've been dismissed.”

Reyes feels his pulse quicken at the declaration, in equal parts fear and rage— _his_ Blackwatch sent him here, to this place of shadow and malice? His satisfaction at being right about the corruption plaguing his organization is heavily tamped by the venom in the other man's voice, and what it might mean for him soon.

“We're going to do a little exercise—some training, if you will.” The hands return to Reyes's body, fingers parting his cropped hair to place small circular leads against his temples and forehead; each one stabs into his flesh minutely, embedding itself in his skin with tiny barbs, and he yelps at the sharp stings. “To make you into the commander we need, and to get rid of that undesirable behaviour.”

Before Reyes can blink, the leads buzz—and his body convulses as electricity shoots through him, scalding his nerves all the way to the roots of his teeth. A scream tears itself from his throat as his world goes white, and when the shock finally stops it takes his vision a few long moments to settle, his heart even longer to stop stuttering.

“Not pleasant, is it?” the figure asks flippantly, over Reyes's strained, wheezing gasps for breath. “This is what happens when you forget your place, Gabriel. You only hurt yourself.”

Reyes flinches as touch returns, three more leads being placed on his chest; his eyes dart down to them and stare, widen when they, too, pierce into his skin. Another shock comes, more intense than before, and it feels like time stands still as his body is lit aflame from the inside out.

“Most men wouldn't be able to handle this kind of voltage,” he's told, as he chokes on his breath, his lungs seizing. “Luckily for you, the soldier enhancement program was fruitful, so you can. But...” He trails off, and another shock is delivered; Reyes is certain he dislocates his shoulder in his body's haste to convulse and shake, as the electricity takes him hostage. “...where does it end? What's your limit, Gabriel?”

The visor looms over his face, then, burns his bloodshot eyes. He can feel water streaking his cheeks.

“We're going to find out,” the man says, sounding far too excited for Reyes's liking as he trails his thumb through the tear tracks on Reyes's cheek. “And then we're going to push past it, and break it.” Another shock is delivered, and Reyes finds himself in too much pain to even scream, his breath stolen by the agony.

“We're going to set new limits for you—and then we're going to break those, too. Over and over, until nothing is left of you but what we want.”

Another shock, and then another—Reyes feels his muscles tear, chokes on his tongue. He can almost feel his heart blowing out of his chest, shocked into a panic, and his breath stops coming, until black starts to gather at the edges of his vision.

He dies to the sound of laughter, and the smell of burning flesh.


	3. Chapter 3

How long he's trapped there, Reyes has no way of knowing.

What he does know is pain—spending long hours in unforgiving metal restraints, bowing under the lash of a razor-tipped whip, convulsing and seizing as he's subjected to endless electrocution. He never sees the faces of his abuses, never hears any names—it's all just a sea of angry red visors amid darkness, complete isolation amid his agony.

As the—days, weeks, months—go on, he can feel himself changing. He starts to pick shapes out of the gloom, eyes adapting to detect figures standing out from shadow; he's always starved, kept in a cell without food for days on end, but gradually the pinch of hunger fades to a core-deep ache that he can more or less ignore. His body is shifting, from something solid and human to something—decidedly not. His skin starts to pale in the darkness and flake away, in sheets like plaster; the pain of it wakes him, the first night it happens, and he watches his body fade to pieces and screams until dawn, when the guards wake up and rush in to beat him into silence.

He's told it's part of his recovery, the degeneration, that he will heal—he's not told how much it will hurt, that it will take full 4-point restraints to keep himself from clawing his remaining flesh to shreds, that the regeneration feels like he's being set aflame a piece at a time. He's not told that for days on end he won't be able to control it—that he'll writhe on a table trapped between blinding light and steel restraints and watch pieces of his body dissolve into mist and solidify again in a macabre loop, caught between a corpse and a ghost but granted the peace of neither. He isn't told that after his initial introduction to his new body, when his new abilities finally settle, he's to be tested; pulled from the table and tossed into his cell, and a man in a red visor towers over him with a remote in his grasp. Hands fasten a heavy collar around his neck, pinch his skin between the clasps; it's one pain of many, and he tries to swat the hands away but he's _so tired,_ and he can hardly manage to rise to his knees in protest before his head starts swimming. 

“Gabriel,” the voice calls, sharp enough to make his head hurt, to drag his focus back to the terrible present. “We're going to practice now. Shift form.”

Reyes blinks blearily at the command, faces the man with a glassy stare; he hears a snort of contempt, sees the man raise the remote. Distantly, his mind registers incoming hurt, imminent danger—he flinches back when the man snaps, “Now, Gabriel.”

He doesn't even know how to do it—has never tried, before, but before he can say so, voltage rocks his emaciated body, makes him shriek. He writhes upon the floor like a thing possessed—body convulsing and jerking like a rabid demon—and screams until he tastes blood, until he can't scream anymore. 

When the voltage finally stops, he's left sobbing. A boot nudges roughly at his cheek; he feels his skin peel away at the contact, flake away into dust, and wishes he were dead.

It seems an unattainable fantasy, now.

“Shift form,” the voice repeats, cold and merciless. Reyes chokes on his breath and closes his eyes, swallows another surge of tears—he doesn't have time to cry right now. _“Now.”_

Reyes lays still, body still sprawled along the floor like a broken thing, and tries to focus—on the feeling of falling apart, of fading. He tries to make himself match the state he wishes for; to be dust, a mist, untouchable and incapable of being hurt, free at last.

He can tell it's working by the way it hurts.

It feels like he's being torn apart, cell by cell, ripped away until nothing remains—his feet go first and it's terrifying, the feeling of solid ground leaving as his body separates into a state that doesn't need it anymore. The cold crawls up his legs and destroys everything in its path, burning him away like dark mist, relentless; eventually the collar clatters to the floor, and he knows that he's succeeded in changing because for the first time since he's died, the first time he can remember, nothing hurts.

It's all at once a blessing and the most horrific thing he's ever felt.

“Good, Gabriel.” He looks at the man standing with arms crossed at the door of his cell, between himself and freedom—and in a split second his decision is made, and he seizes the opportunity. He charges for the door as fast as he's able—passes harmlessly through the enraged guard, watches him sound the alarm—but as soon as he's out in the hallway his fantasy comes to a crashing halt because he realizes, very suddenly, that he has no idea where to go.

The tunnels seem neverending, a labyrinth, and he knows they all lead to more pain for him—he can't risk going down one, with how weak he is, how his form wobbles unsteadily. In a panic, he rushes toward the closest wall, knowing that even alone out in the wilderness he has a better chance of surviving than here, with these men who are dedicated to breaking him; the alarm has been sounded, now, blaring noise that hurts his head, and he’s afraid—the wraith form is hard to keep, his cells ache at the distance and scream for closeness—

And in an instant it all crumbles.

It feels like fire as his cells come back together, burn and melt into one unit again; his feet hit the floor and he collapses, against the stone wall, crying out his anguish as a hand tightens in the long, tangled locks of his hair.

“You almost made it, Gabriel,” someone says in a mocking coo, as his head is wrenched back; lights are everywhere, and they blind him, his eyes having grown used to being in the dark for so long. “You were so close, and you failed.”

Reyes is dragged bonelessly away from his one chance at freedom, from his hopeless attempt at escape, his body scraping along the floor; he doesn’t have the strength to fight the hold that keeps him so helpless, or the heart to fight the tears that spill over as he’s told, “You were doing so well, Gabriel...had such promise. But it appears you’re going to need more training.”

He’s taken to a new room in a new tunnel, only barely bigger than his cell, cold and lit so brightly his eyes burn—and he’s tossed up onto a metal slab, and the pain of landing on unpadded bones is more of a shock than the cold anymore. In the flurry of hands that suddenly surround him—strapping him tight against the table, pulling his head back until his neck strains, fastening a metal bit between his cracked teeth—he loses count of the bodies they’re attached to, and chokes on his cry of fright as an angry sea of red visors loom around him.

“We hadn’t wanted to do this, Gabriel.” His darting bloodshot eyes have no idea where the voice comes from, and he can only tell that it lacks any kind of remorse or sympathy. He quakes against the straps that bite into his skin, terrified beyond measure. “We tried to give you a chance. But you’ve left us no choice, now.”

Something heavy and cold is fastened around his skull, then, the chill a shock against his flesh; it squeezes his skull to the point of pain, then bores into his forehead with a loud, mechanic whirr that drowns out his scream, and he feels singed by the blood as it runs down his face, hotter than anything he’s ever felt. 

“You’ve forced our hand,” someone says over his screaming, and his shrieks reach a new octave as the drill tears through his bone, boring against the frontal lobe of his brain, shredding anything it finds to pieces. “Later, when you think of when everything went wrong, when you really lost it all—know that you only have yourself to blame. It’s your fault, Gabriel.”

Reyes wails in reply, can feel hot, hot blood gushing down his face, matting his hair together and stinging his eyes; he sobs when the drill finally stops, the noise raw and defeated, shoulders hitching. The machine over his skull shifts, then squeezes him again, and he feels like his head is going to explode as it starts to pulse—

Then it _does,_ and hot agony radiates out from the very core of his being, white and crackling like lightning, overwhelming—

Everything goes black, his consciousness fading to a mantra that plays in his ears, endlessly.

_your fault_

_your fault_

_your fault_


	4. Chapter 4

“Wake up,” a voice calls, and he's pulled from the reprieve of darkness.

His eyes open but his vision is blurry, blinded by the lights that shine like suns overhead; he can hear voices around him, muddled like murky water, shot through by the steady ping and low thrum of some kind of machinery close by. It feels like the weight of his body is suffocating, like he's been turned to cold stone—he draws a breath and his ribcage cracks like ice, lungs burning as they expand to draw in life, reanimate his corpse. 

He has no idea where he is.

A hand grabs his chin, suddenly, and even more light burns into his eyes; when it leaves he's left blind and gasping, his joints snapping like hard frost as he squirms, tries to rise, to get his bearings. But as soon as his head is off the table nausea grabs him and won't let go, twisting his stomach and making his head swim, and then the voices get louder, yelling, hands grab him—

“Don't do that again,” he's told, as his shoulders thunk back down to the solid table. He mumbles in response, too hazed to form words with his cotton tongue. 

“I'm going to tell you some things about yourself that you need to know,” the voice continues, and finally his eyes give in to the light and start to adjust; soon he can make out a wide-shouldered man in all black at his side, red visor glaring down at him, with two more just like him standing on either side of his feet. He looks down at himself and sees dark veins bulging against pale skin, flesh mottled with darkness, and his instincts scream fear— 

“This is your body. This is how you look. This is normal for you.” The man grabs a mirror off one of the tables nearby and holds it up, and for a moment he's struck—he's met with bloodshot eyes and a disastrous stretch of skin that once might have been a face, a reflection marred by scars and melted flesh and one he absolutely does not recognize. “This is your face.”

The mirror is set aside, and then the man reaches out, grabs his throat; he chokes in surprise as thick fingers tighten around his trachea, as his lungs cry for air, but despite his brain's protesting his limbs stay heavy, useless at his sides. “Your name is Reaper, and you have no friends, no family, no home. All you have is a purpose.”

He searches the red visor desperately as the edges of his vision start to dim, choking on pleas—but the hold is merciless, and his eyes start to water as he begins to suffocate in his bed. 

“Your purpose is to obey. You will follow orders, you will steal, you will kill—or you will die. You are an asset, and you were created to bring glory to the new world order that is Talon. Do you understand?”

He manages a nod, a gasp that sounds like affirmation; and the hand abruptly leaves his throat. He sucks in air like a man drowning, closes his eyes and pants, flinches when something is tossed into his lap.

It's a manilla folder—the man is already leaving, but throws over his shoulder, “That's your first assignment, Reaper. You leave at dawn. Don't disappoint us, or you won't come back.”

The door snaps shut and the lights cycle off, leaving him alone in the looming darkness. He takes a few moments to just breathe, relish the feeling of air in his lungs again—mourn the ache in his throat—and then he slowly thumbs open the folder, and reads his mission by the glowing lights of the monitors around him. When dawn comes he knows he is ready.

But what he doesn't know is that it won't matter. He'll be returned to this room, over and over, hear the same introduction—needles will find his veins like water finds the sea, and he will find himself arching off the table with the fire that runs through his blood, the pain that devours him whole. 

He will die, and then he will wake up. And every time, it will feel like he is suffocating.


	5. Chapter 5

An alarm sounds in Talon headquarters, and pale eyes snap open.

Reaper is awake in an instant—his new body has never known a true sleep, which makes staying on guard every second of every day easier. But his neck is stiff and his head aches, terribly, throbbing in time with the beat of his heart; and the weight of his body is suffocating. He gets to his feet slowly, breaking his joints like ice as they move—the pain is familiar, though he can't place why. He makes his way toward the door of his cell as alarms continue to blare, and stares out passively past the flickering energy bars—watching, waiting, apathetic. Nothing without his orders, without a task; because he is alone here, has always been alone and will always be alone, and Talon is the only home he has ever had.

It’s all he knows, now.

The energy bars dissolve away, orange light flickering out of existence, and he hears a voice overhead that solemnly tells him, “Go, Reaper. Kill them all.”

He obeys.

It’s a slaughter—a handful of people he doesn’t know, dressed in blue and white and doomed to failure as soon as he enters the fray. Their deaths are quick and passionless, Reaper staying as cold as the bullets his cheap pistols put through their brains, uncaring of their wide eyes and the shock on their faces when they die.

Murder isn’t fun—he thinks it might've been, a long time ago. But he can remember nothing of those days, and even if the killing isn't enjoyable, it's the most relaxing thing he's allowed to do anymore. So he revels in the cries of pain and the blood that sprays against his skin, the twitches of their dying bodies as they fall against the ground.

He ends the attack almost as quickly as it had started—reduces the invading enemy to nothing more than cooling corpses, sprawled in heaps across the bloodstained floor. Job done, he steps over their bodies to return to his cell; the energy bars flicker and hum back to life behind him, and he sighs as he sinks down onto his cot again.

He’s always tired, anymore.

Talon’s best weapon—their best-kept secret—lays down to sleep, and dreams of steely blue eyes and hair blonde like hay, a voice he doesn't recognize and kinder than anything he has any business knowing.

_“We’re the good guys.”_

___

He hasn't eaten in seven days.

He lays still on his cot and stares at the ceiling, trying to settle himself into the comfort of the cool dark and ignore the hollow pain in his gut. He knows that asking for something to eat will do him no good, because he'd already tried—put his hands out through the bars to grab a nearby guard, tangle his broken nails in his vest, ask him why he hadn't been fed in so long. He'd been answered with the butt of a rifle jammed against his jaw, a glare as he fell to the ground; the guard had hissed at him that he was an asset to Talon and nothing more, and he would be fed when Talon deemed him hungry enough.

That was two days ago.

Now his hunger has reached a new point, something he's never felt before—strong enough to turn his stomach inside out, turn his body into a cannibal. The ache of atrophy is just a different type of hurt, something akin to the constant pain of his degeneration; he finds himself slipping into wraith form and hovering above his cot as often as he can, just to get a reprieve from the pain, as fleeting as it may be.

He's just solidified himself again when he hears the footsteps.

He turns his head to the side, staring blankly at the heavily-armored guard that walks up to his cell, something slung over his shoulder; when he gets closer Reaper stirs, and the guard halts, then pulls a shotgun off his waist.

“You move off that cot, and I'll blow your head off,” the guard growls, slowly advancing; now that he's closer, Reaper can make out the shape of a human body across the guard's shoulder. “I know it won't kill you. But it'll hurt like fuck and it'll keep you down long enough to me to rip your ass apart.”

They both know it's true. Reaper doesn’t move.

He can't help his wariness as the guard comes closer, then eventually into his cell, stopping just inside the energy bars; the corpse is pulled off his shoulder and tossed onto the floor, and for a moment Reaper just stares at it, struck with a morbid sense of bewilderment as the guard retreats to the safety of the other side of the energy bars.

Then the smell reaches him.

Crisp, tart, and pungent—the scent hits him like a blow to the gut and fills him with a sharp, gnawing hunger, pulls him to his feet like a thing possessed. He finds himself dropping to his knees beside the corpse, and this close the smell is intoxicating, almost to the point of nauseating his empty stomach; but he can't help but lean closer, drawn by hunger and desperation to the face of his victim, to his pale lips, where the scent is strongest—

He breathes in, deeply, closing his eyes and savoring the rich smell of decay—

And then it's something _more_ , something almost-solid against his teeth, and his eyes snap open; something shimmering and orange connects him to the corpse, flecked with black and stretching between the two of them like transparent taffy. He's terrified for a fraction of a second, horrified by what he's done, what this must _be_ —

But then the substance touches his tongue, flows down his throat, and he feels reborn. Life rushes into his body, and he can feel it as every cell is rejuvenated, every pain dulled; he abandons his trepidations and drinks the soul as quickly as he can, chipped nails digging into the corpse's flesh as he grabs its cold face, brings them closer to consume faster.

It feels like drinking sunlight, like tasting moonbeams; he sucks the soul down ravenously, chasing the high, the reprieve of his constant suffering, and when the thread finally breaks he pulls away and gasps, eyes wide and body trembling with white-hot energy, thrumming with stolen life. He looks down at the face of the corpse and recoils—where it had looked fresh before, now its skin is pale and mottled, pulled tight against hard bone and sunken eyes. 

Robbed of whatever life it had left, by whatever supernatural power Reaper now possesses.

He hears noise and looks over, past the energy bars that light up the darkness; the guard who had brought him the corpse wipes his mouth and straightens up from the nearby bin he'd been bent over, fixes Reaper with a look of disgust.

“You're a fucking _monster_.”

Reaper stares at him, passively; but something at his core cracks and splinters at the words, so much sharper without the muffling robot filter of a helmet. The guard pulls his own back on and shakes his head, then turns his back and retreats into the darkness again, leaving Reaper alone with the corpse; he glances down at it, gives it a nudge with his fingers, almost surprised by the chill to its skin. Then he gets to his feet and returns to his cot to lay down, staring at the energy bars until they burn patterns of light into his vision, strong enough to stay with him when he closes his eyes.

He isn't hungry, anymore.


	6. Chapter 6

Reaper's training continues. 

He grows, in ways he never would've thought possible; he learns to quiet the screaming of his cells and hold his wraith mode for longer, bleed himself into the ground to shadow step. Exhaustion drains him of whatever life his body still holds, but it also numbs him to his constant agony, and he starts to harness these brief periods of lesser pain and use them as a defense against the bad times that always come. 

Bored and lonely in his cell one night, he focuses on a piece of the ragged hem of his fatigues and wills it to dissolve, watches the particles float at the edge of his fingertips—a noise comes from up the hallway and he loses concentration, looks away, and when he looks back the cloud of smog has solidified into a small, jagged piece of something akin to coal. He picks it up off his lap and rolls it between his fingers, thinking, and it is in this way that he discovers he can turn pieces of his immediate surroundings into other objects, rearrange their structure in the same way he manipulates his own.

He makes bullets—keeps at it every chance he gets, when he's not being pumped full of some chemical or subjected to more tests. He practices until he has six perfect shotgun shells, and rolls them through his fingers at night, hides them under his pillow when his guards come at dawn. 

He fights.

The first time it's a shock; he's pulled from his cell and dragged down to a room he's never been in before, with a sandy floor and a balcony. The lights are achingly bright and he staggers blindly after his guard, until he's shoved forward and falls to his knees in the sand. Voice—dozens, maybe more, he's too disoriented by the lights to tell—roar around him, then cheer as a shadow falls over his face.

The punch blindsides him.

It's strong enough to send his body flying—his back slams against the far wall of the room with a dull thud, and spots dance in his vision as he slides back down to the ground. His head is jerked up by a fist in his hair, and he has no choice but to blearily focus on the hulking omnic that stands in front of him, a solid gunmetal grey and easily twice his height. 

“This is my opponent?” the omnic spits in a crackling voice, dragging Reaper around the room by his hair as it paces and looks every human gathered in the eye. “Some beaten dog? What am I supposed to do with this?”

The omnic tosses Reaper aside, and he rolls through the sand with the force of the throw, stopping only when someone's boot connects with his head in a kick strong enough to combat the momentum. _“Get up and fight!”_ an onlooker screams, and Reaper manages to push himself up onto his hands and knees, too dazed to do anything but listen to the voices that circle him, endless and unbroken.

“Fight, you fucking freak!”

“I've got money on this!” 

“Tear that abomination apart!”

Half of the words are lost to the din and don't even register with him, but the ones that do make his teeth set on edge—is this what he is, now? Entertainment during the down time, a toy to be played with? Why should he hurt himself for the amusement of the people who have only ever brought him pain?

“Stop,” he mumbles, straightening up and turning to where he thinks the omnic is, following the sound of whirring vent fans; he can taste blood on his teeth. “We don't....we don't have to—“

The blow against his temple is immediate and _brutal_ , and sends him collapsing face-first into the sand. He wakes up some time later, back in his cell with no memory of how he got there, and he hides his aching head under his thin blanket and curses every omnic ever created.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short and I apologize!! But this is simply the way it had to be broken up ;-;

His next mission takes him to Switzerland.

The flight there is silent—it's him and a dozen Talon agents who stare too much and special cuffs on his wrists that keep his wraith mode in check, shuffling feet and the clicks of guns being cleaned; he was given two of his own, plain shotguns made of black and silver, and he doesn't know where they came from but does know that they feel familiar in his hands, a comforting weight in the sheaths around his waist. 

(Engraved on the sides of the guns is a phrase—BLK 001. He doesn't know why the letters are there, but he likes them.)

They touch down and he's grabbed by the shoulder by his commander, whipped around and held under that piercing red stare, told again what exactly his job is—get into the base, recover the data, get out. Kill everyone on sight, and—

“Cover up that ugly mug.” The commander pushes a white mask into his hands, and as he walks away Reaper looks down at it; pristine, vaguely skull-shaped, light against his ruined flesh. He pauses, then pulls the mask over his face, adjusting it so it sits comfortably against the neck of his armored vest—the covering over his eyes darkens the world and makes it more comfortable for his altered vision, and for that he is grateful. The soft mesh interior is cool, almost comforting to the ruined flesh beneath.

But he doesn't have long to appreciate the new piece of gear; that will have to be done later, when he is alone and safe in the darkness of his cell. Right now he can see his team falling into formation and so he follows, pulling the shotguns from their sheaths and taking a breath to steady himself.

He has work to do.


	8. Chapter 8

The infiltration is easy—his fingers know codes that his mind doesn't, know how to unlock doors he's never seen before. The base is deathly quiet as he walks in, only the tapping of boots on the floor breaking the silence; presumed empty, halls dim in the fading light of dusk. 

His team branches off and he finds the way to a large entry room alone—past portraits that line the hallways, people of all walks of life, common only in the fact that they all look heroic—and he pauses when he walks inside it, immediately on edge. Something isn't right and he can sense it, feel it in his core: a feeling of dread, of looming catastrophe, strong enough to make his grip around his shotguns tighten. 

He turns, slowly, and finds himself staring down the muzzle of a pulse rifle, into angry blue eyes—his own widen, and he looks further and recognizes the blonde hair, the stern-lined face set into a scowl.

“Who are you?” the man asks sharply, and Reaper's breath catches as he hears the voice from his dreams.

He finds his own voice is stolen, his breath caught in his throat; the man glares at him and takes a step closer. “I won't ask you again. State your name and your business.”

The click of the pulse rifle being cocked snaps him out of his pause—his body reacts before his mind can and his own guns swing up, lock load shoot and he's darting away, looking for cover, the chatter of more bullets following him. He can smell the gunpowder in the air as he ducks behind a nearby pillar, but it's the sound of the alarm that startles him first, a blaring wail loud enough to make his head throb. His hands fumble over his guns as he hurriedly reloads, and he looks over his shoulder as he hears more footsteps, the shouting of voices he recognizes—it's his team, rushing the room and peppering the man he'd first run into with gunfire, chasing him back toward the storage locker. 

Part of him—some part deep down that he doesn't understand and tries to tamp down, to ignore—screams at him that this is wrong, it's all wrong, _what are you doing—_

But then a bullet grazes his arm, shaves through the flesh sallow and pale; all uncertainty and hesitation leaves him as instinct and conditioning force their way to the forefront of his mind, silencing everything in the way and shutting down every thought that doesn't directly have to do with survival. He passes into wraith mode and races up through the rest of his team, apathetic as the bullets pass through him harmlessly and mow down their bodies, eyes only fixed on the blonde-haired man: his target.

It's a mission. Nothing more.

His wraith form fades just in time for him to grab the man's pulse rifle around the muzzle and jerk it up, fleck the ceiling with spray; his free hand goes to one of his own guns, but as soon as it's lifted it's being knocked aside by the man's elbow, clattering uselessly across the floor. They struggle over the pulse rifle, but it's a battle Reaper knows he's doomed to lose—he doesn't have the muscle mass to match his foe. The gun is wrestled away from him and leveled at his mask, and he only just manages to get into wraith mode in time to dart away and watch the bullets cut through the space he'd been in only seconds before.

“Stay _still_ , you bastard,” the man hisses at him, chasing Reaper's flitting figure with bullets; the form starts to pull at his cells, his body demanding to be solid and whole again, and he fights against it for as long as he can, grimacing in pain, watching, _waiting—_

Then the fire stops, and the blonde curses as he hurries to reload his weapon; it's all the break Reaper needs. His body solidifies and he kicks out at the man's knee, then spins around to kick the rifle out of his slackened grip when he drops to a kneel. He tugs his remaining shotgun free and aims right at that targeting sight, glares at the steely eyes that meet his own—

_Blue eyes are the first thing he notices, when he opens the door to his new room; blue eyes with an endless depth and a shock of messy blonde hair, front teeth that buck out a fraction when the kid looks up from unpacking and smiles at him, something warm and inviting and most certainly too kind for a place like this._

_“Hey—name's John Morrison, but most people call me Jack.” He holds a hand out. “I'm your new roommate.”_

_“...Gabriel.” He reaches out—_

And staggers backward, seeing stars—the left side of his mask cracks from the brutal punch against his cheek, and one more heavy-handed blow from the blonde— _Morrison,_ his mind screams, a dozen different alarms going off in his head, _Jack Morrison why am I fighting Jack Morrison what is happening_ —has it breaking off entirely, clattering to the ground as Reaper falls. He stares blearily up at Morrison as his remaining shotgun is kicked away, and Morrison stares back down, the anger in his face slowly changing to something more vulnerable, confused, then horrified.

“....Gabe?” His voice comes out strained and raw, disbelieving; he takes a step back, away from the disfigured creature lying at his feet. “Gabriel...is that...?”

“No, it's not,” another voice cuts in, sharp and booming; Reaper snaps his head to the side and recognizes the posture of his commander, flanked by a half dozen Talon operatives—his team, he realizes, a feeling of nauseating dread coiling in his stomach, spreading outward through his veins as they all take aim at Morrison. “Gabriel Reyes was declared MIA after a Blackwatch mission in Ukraine went sour. This is Reaper, and _he's_ the reason that we have _these._ ”

He holds his hand up, and Reaper can hardly see the manilla folders he holds; but it doesn't matter, because he knows what they are, knows there's one on him—on who he used to be. 

“Agent files?” Morrison scowls, looking between the Talon operatives like he's gauging them, readying himself for a fight. “What do you want those for? Those are loyal Overwatch heroes—they'll never work for you.”

The commander laughs—it makes Reaper shudder, still, brings back memories of white-hot and straining and broken—and shakes his head, then gestures vaguely in Reaper's direction. 

“Don't you think that's what he said?”


	9. Chapter 9

The room is silent for a moment, the commander's words hanging heavy in the air; in that one moment of quiet and still Reaper can see the expressions that play over Jack's face, his anguish and indecision, and he knows what he must do.

They can't both make it out alive.

He lunges sharply for his shotgun—Jack reacts to the motion, darting away, and the operatives react to Jack, chasing him with bullets. Reaper's fingers close around his gun and he jerks it up, aiming immediately for the gas pipelines tracking across the ceiling; he can hear his commander shouting at him, screaming, but Reaper only has eyes for Jack, watching the end of his coat slip through the door at the far end of the hall.

Reaper waits—counts one breath, two—and then he pulls the trigger.

The explosion is immediate, deafening, and eerily calm; Gabriel supposes that by the time someone has had their life taken a dozen times or more, impending death just loses its thrill. He watches the fire billow outward, sweep through the room and remove everything in its wake, scorch across the floor. 

He prays to whatever god who would bother to listen to him now that Jack will be okay, and he lets himself be consumed.

__

Later, he awakes.

His eyes open to darkness and he can taste blood and ash on his tongue, feel the sting of soot lining his lungs. He tries to move and realizes that every piece of him is pinned; rubble in varying sizes lying heavy across his limbs, trapping him in with the wreckage. 

He thinks of Jack.

He tried to make sure Jack would get out alive; waited as long as he could. Some part of him is terrified that it wasn't enough, that as soon as he picks himself out of this debris he'll find the Strike-Commander lying in a pool of blood, those beautiful blue eyes empty and glazed--

He pulls himself out of the horror of what-ifs with a groan, pushing against the block of concrete over his head; it falls with a clatter, spewing dust around a room lit only by flickering overhead lights and dying pockets of flame. He hears voices, distantly—Jack's, two others, too far away to make out words but he's heard Jack's concerned voice enough to recognize it instantly. A quick look around finds the Strike-Commander standing in the hall on the far side of the room; so distant that Gabe can only just make out the tattered blue of his duster, the blonde of his hair.

_He's worried. He's going to come looking. He's going to find me._

It's enough to make Gabe giddy with relief; finally, this nightmare will be over. There will be no more torture and no more Talon, no more nights falling to pieces on a stiff bunk in a cold cell—Jack will save him and Angela will heal him, and he knows things can't go back to the way they were but they can be close, at least. A semblance of a dead relationship that Gabe can maybe—just maybe—coax back into something living.

All Jack has to do is turn around.

Gabe waits for it with baited breath; tries to shout, and chokes on the blood that clogs his torn throat, renders him speechless. He stares at Jack and Jack...Jack starts to move, but away, walking down the hall and away, and every cell in Gabe's body protests as he tries to move with him.

 _“J-Jack...”_ His voice is a raspy, painful whisper, breaks wetly as another surge of blood lodges in his throat; he wheezes through it, trying to drag himself out of the wreckage and toward the retreating image of the man whose life he saved, the only one capable of saving _him._ “J-Ja...Ja...ck...”

He could scream with the unfairness of it all—instead feels tears stinging his eyes, desperate as he drags himself forward; howls silently in pain as something in his abdomen _throbs_ , looks back at himself to see the piece of rebar that disappears into the rock right over him and pierces _through_ him, stabbing through his stomach and embedding into the ground below. He tugs at it, weakly, knowing it's hopeless—looks back and sees that Jack is _gone_ , has walked away and left him here, despite knowing Gabe was here, was _alive_ —

He screams again, the tacky sound of bubbling blood the only noise leaving his ruined throat; he tries to dissolve himself, tries to get away, and his body rejects his will, too injured to risk coming apart. He thrashes and screams and beats the concrete with his broken hands, tears carving tracks through the blood and grime on his face as he rages against it all; against Talon and Jack Morrison and his own cruel fate. When he's exhausted himself with his silent screams and bitter, bitter tears, he drops his head down into the rubble again, shoulders hitching painfully with noiseless sobs.

He knows that later, Ana will ask him— _Gabriel, where is Gabriel? Is he alive?_

 _No,_ Jack will say, and Gabe slips back into oblivion, betrayal suffocating the breath from his lungs.


	10. Chapter 10

Talon comes for him. He is not forgotten.

Soldiers in red and black and grey return to pry him out of the wreckage that used to be his life, his one chance at salvation turned to rubble. They drag his ruined body out in the pieces that it has been broken into, take him back to the place that took away his humanity--to heal, they say. To rest, and recover, and repair.

In the infirmary, he’s stitched up again; tied down on a cold table and staring at the ceiling, half conscious as the doctor-guards put his pieces back together with the help of needle and thread and sew him closed. His body smokes faintly as they work, chips of himself wisping away into nothing and lost forever--he feels the cold deep in his bones, settling into his core to burn like icy fire. His eyes close slowly, like they’re weighted, and as his breath rattles in his lungs he wonders if this is how he dies.

He finds the thought, the possibility, soothing.

But--

“Give him a body,” someone says, and he chokes back to life, forcing his eyes open again; horror makes his stomach churn, makes him struggle against the binds that hold him still. There’s a gunshot to his right and then wet warmth, a heavy body draped across his chest--glazed eyes staring forward, blood streaking down the man’s neck from the bullet blown into his temple, soaking into the grey shirt that all the guards wear and dripping across Gabriel’s chest. Gabriel riots against the gore, heart hammering under his skin as he sucks in panicky breaths through his mouth--he doesn’t want it, doesn’t want it, _doesn’t want it_ \--

But Reaper does.

It’s like watching himself from overhead, like being out of his own body: Reaper surges against the straps and leans his head forward until the tendons in his neck scream for mercy, mouth split unnaturally wide and wispy to suck down the air in front of him, to taste the first hint of something rich and pungent wafting across his tongue. The life slides down his throat and Gabriel is helpless to stop it, locked away as Reaper takes control to feed, to nourish, to ensure their combined survival--

When it’s over, Gabriel lies on the table and stares, blearily, up at the blinding lights that dot the ceiling. The corpse, now cold, is pulled from his chest.

“Welcome home, Reaper,” a voice to his right says--nameless, insignificant. So pleased that it makes Gabriel want to throw up, if he had anything tangible in his stomach.

“...this isn’t my home,” he manages to say, the words ground out through grit teeth and laced sharp with anguish, with grief. “I’m...I’m a prisoner--”

“You’re an asset--”

“--a captive--”

“--a _tool_ \--”

“No!” Gabriel writhes against the bonds that hold him down against the table, crying out his frustration, his despair; yelling with the effort it takes to keep _himself_ in mind, to keep the truth separated from the conditioning. He feels like he’s walking on glass, staring down at a reflection of himself: something darker, grotesque, but only a mirror’s edge away. “I-I’m a hostage, a commander--”

“You are what Talon says you are, and no more,” the voice insists, before calmly ordering, “Prepare him for electroshock. It would seem that our training has worn off.”

 _“No!”_ Gabriel tosses his head, grinds his teeth--tries to kick, to flail, anything to free himself, to get away from the hands that grab at his skull and the pinpricks against his flesh, the leads settling against his skin. “M-my name is Gabriel Reyes--”

The first shock steals his breath away, has him arching off the table as his muscles lock up; and when the charge finally stops, over the ragged wheeze of his panting he hears the voice say, “Your name is Reaper.”

Another shock, longer than the last. Gabriel writhes as the charge races through his body, screams until he can taste blood in the back of his throat--when the shock stops, he doesn’t even notice the warm wetness that spreads between his thighs and streaks down his cheeks.

“You are a tool for Talon. No more, and no less. You have no family, no friends.”

“No, I—I was there, with Jack, w-we worked together, part of…” His frantic words turn to a moan of pleading dread, preparation for the next pain; and it comes with a vengeance he’s never felt before, strong enough to make him see white, to burn the breath from his lungs.

“Of Overwatch, the foundation that didn't care about you, that left you in Ukraine to die until _Talon_ saved you!” The voice is sharp, angry; wrathful as it continues, “Jack Morrison _abandoned_ you! All you are you owe to Talon, and Talon is _all you ever will be!”_

He tries to argue--tries to breathe--and finds both actions impossible. The glass splinters beneath his feet.

The charge dies again, for the last time, and takes Gabriel Reyes with it.

-x-

Weeks later, while out on an assignment in the middle of nowhere, he remembers.

They pass an old sign, so high it seems to touch the heavens themselves, bearing a face and a name—Overwatch, and even though the image is sunbleached and stained the man pictured looks like a hero, his cropped hair blonde like hay and his eyes blue steel. He wears a targeting scope over half his face, and something about him pulls Reaper to a stop, compels him to pause.

He stares at the sign blankly, and his brain hurts, aches in a way he’s never felt before; like it’s stretching, somehow, searching for something he didn’t know was missing. One of the Talon handlers glances at him, voice wary as he asks, ”Reaper, is something wrong?”

Reaper hesitates, trying to find the right words to describe the feeling that darts just out of reach. It’s like being hungry, he thinks; like seeing a soul across the battlefield and not being able to get to it. He frowns behind his mask, and his mouth forms a name his mind has long forgotten.

“Morrison.”

It feels familiar on his lips, tastes like home on his tongue, and something deep in his core aches with loss and a grief so sharp it winds him, a tangled mess of things he didn’t know he could ever feel. For a moment he’s dumbfounded, shocked by his own revelation, by what it could _mean_ —

Then he turns to face the Talon agent, and is greeted by the butt of a rifle slamming against his temple hard enough to rattle his teeth. Reaper is out cold before he even hits the ground, oblivious to the chatter of the guards around him.

“...boss? Yeah.” A boot nudges his side, makes his body wheeze. “Yeah, he remembered again. We’ll bring him back in for reconditioning ASAP.”

-x-

Doomed to the life of something broken, his days replay endlessly.

When Reaper wakes again, he finds himself in his cell. His neck is stiff and his head aches, terribly, throbbing in time to the beat of his heart; the weight of his body is suffocating.

It’s all he knows, now.


End file.
